Regeneration: It's a Lottery
by GroovyKat
Summary: Taking a break from her latest companion team, the Doctor makes a solo visit to a planet she's never been to before. There she encounters a young Time Lord staggering through a rip in the fabric of reality and blazing with the fires of regeneration. Who is this Time Lord, and just what is he escaping from?
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Well. It has been a while. I'm not quite sure what happened, but one day I was writing and the next day I wasn't. I physically couldn't pull it together to write anything... I've tried. Oh, how I've tried. But I found I couldn't put a sentence together, let alone an entire story.

So ... So I took a break from it. I took a break and tried to figure out what had happened, and how I could continue where I'd left off.

Coming back, I decided to do a wee exercise before heading back into my bigger stuff. Here is a short trip, exploring something I hope is a little different, that will hopefully get me back into the swing of it all. Bear with it .. it's been a while ...

Oh, and yeah: I don't own Doctor Who ... all of the characters and the fun stuff belong to someone else. I'm just playing a little in the playground to have a wee bit of fun...

~~oooOOOOoo~~

The spring air whistled warmly across the rocky ground at the bottom of the gorge and blew up the cliff face to rise with a howl over the edge. The Doctor closed her eyes and smiled with a warmth that matched the winds as it kissed at her cheeks and ruffled her hair.

Nurilia: nestled within the spirals of the congellan galaxy of the Trudillin constellation. It was the hidden gem inside an otherwise hostile network of oversized gas giants and unpredictable meteor fields. The only hospitable planet for ten thousand light years, Nurillia hosted a wealth of resources that could easily sustain any advancing civilization for millions of years … yet not a single form of intelligent life form had taken control of it.

Which was a good thing. Nurillia truly was a beautiful planet. Unlike the other planets within its solar system, it was lush and green; full of single stemmed evergreen trees that reached up high toward the blazing sun to cast elongated dark shadows across the landscape. Each of these trees were dense and thick with needle-like foliage that completely blocked the sun's rays from the ground below. Even in the middle of the day the forests were as dark and as chilled as night. The forest grounds and trees sang a perpetual song filled with the sounds and murmurs of the nocturnal hunters and gatherers. Outside the forest, however, the sun blazed hotly above. The raging sun created a symphony all of its own with the melodic song of birds in search of their mates and the rustle and scurry of the ground wildlife scavenging the bushes and scrublands for food. .

Moving from night into day was as swift as setting foot from the shadow to the light. Once could stand astride the line between the forests and the open landscape and quite easily feel the difference between the day and night from one outstretched hand to the other.

This was a new planet for the Doctor to visit. Never in her lives had she visited Nurilia or any planet with in the constellation of Trudillin. There had never been any real particular reason for her to do so. There was no known uprisings or incredible historical events that would spurn the need to drop by. It wasn't a registered or well-known vacation destination in any era of its existence. Nurilia – and the constellation within which it quietly resided – were barely a blip in the great tourist map of the universe. Trudillin and pretty much all of her planets were simply unremarkable and uninhabitable…

….which, of course, made it _very_ remarkable in the eyes of the Doctor when the TARDIS had offered it up as a potential destination for a short visit.

"Well," she had drawled through a smile as she leaned into a stoop and scrolled through the listing of planets on the TARDIS monitors. "I've never been there before, have I?" She didn't rise out of her lean, but she did lift her eyes to the rotor column and given it a slightly excited smile. "Which begs a question or two, doesn't it? Like: Why haven't I visited before; and why are you suggesting it now?"

Her grin only widened as she reached a hand to the side and flicked a switch beside a flashing orange button. "So what d'ya say, TARDIS? Want to go see a _brand new_ world. You know. Something different, just you an' me for a change?"

"I think that sounds _brilliant_." She cooed as she'd straightened up and looked down at the console. She entered in a few more commands through the console, and then looked up with a wink in her eye. "An' I don't want to know anythin' about it, yeah? Let's just do what we do best, and go in blind."

A cookie popped out of a small dispenser on her left side, and the Doctor's eyes widened as her mouth stretched into a grin. She took a bite with her smile still firmly in place and hummed appreciatively. "Ooooooh, yes. Now how about we just swoop in and _discover_ this new world. How does that sound?"

The hum and whine of the time rotor answered in the affirmative and within a moment, the TARDIS had materialized on Nurillia.

Immediately upon exiting the blue TARDIS doors and setting foot on this new world, the Doctor's excitement shifted toward disappointment to be met with darkness and the endless low murmurs and chirping of nocturnal life. Going in "blind" with no intel was one thing; going in blind because the world around her was in pitch darkness was another thing entirely. Not wanting to go back inside the TARDIS to wait it out, and certainly not wanting to traipse about in the darkness all alone, she decided to instead gather some wood for a campfire.

That was three days ago.

The Doctor had spent three days of complete darkness seated beside a crackling campfire telling herself and her TARDIS stories of adventures and companions past, and roasting marshmallows waiting for the sun to rise so that she could explore this new world.

And, well, three days had been quite enough, thank you, so the Doctor had given up waiting beside the fire. It had been tempting to climb back aboard the TARDIS and meterialise elsewhere on a planet far more exciting. Very tempting. But she'd already invested three days of her current incarnation on this planet waiting for something interesting to happen, and by Rassilon, she was going to go and find something _interesting_ to … happen…

Once she had stepped out of the thick canopy of trees and into bright and warm sunlight, the Doctor had hit her palm to her forehead and let out a moan. Of course. How did she not consider that it was the tree canopy above her that had put her into perpetual night. She'd looked up over the light of the flames and remarked on the dense foliage above her head a few times during her sabbatical by the fire. The fact that she felt the need to comment on it should have been an indicator…

…Superior Time Lord Intellect indeed.

Self recrimination only lasted a short while, however, as the warmth of the gas giant in the sky lapped at her face. For the first time the true beauty of the landscape was laid out before her, and the Doctor couldn't help but close her eyes and let out a long breath of awe.

"Beautiful," she breathed out through a wide smile as she opened her eyes to look across the canyon. "Absolutely beautiful. I'm sure that Yaz, Graham and Ryan will love it here."

Her smile didn't falter as the winds around her picked up. In fact, she opened her arms wide and made a slow turn of her body to capture the wind in the flaps of her jacket to flare it out around her. Her grin shifted to a laugh through a wide open mouth smile of complete and utter exuberance and freedom.

"Somewhere new to take them. Brilliant."

That smile and laugh only lasted a short moment. From a crop of trees in the near distance, the acrid smell of Lindos crackled through the air to assault her nose with a tangy, sour scent that made her gag.

She staggered her slow turn to come to an uncoordinated stop facing the source of the smell. There, in the distance, she saw a figure bathed in shimmering amber energy stagger from the trees and into the open landscape.

"What in the name of Gallifrey…?"

The figure stumbled, fell to a knee, and then rose with a cry of pain to stagger toward the edge of the cliff.

Immediately the Doctor launched into a run. "Stop!" she called out with urgency. "You'll go over the edge!"

The figure turned to glare a blinding amber stare toward her and barely had time to drop into a defensive pose before its head was thrown back and they're entire body exploded into light.

The Doctor kept running, but brought her elbow upward to shield her eyes with her forearm. Despite the pressure of what she knew were regeneration energies pushing her backward, she continued forward. She had to: A fellow Time Lord had succumbed to an attack and was regenerating before her eyes, she wasn't going to back off until she knew that any – if any – danger was neutralized first. She drew her sonic screwdriver from her coat pocket and held it out ahead of her as she continued to push forward into the regeneration wash.

The cry of fear agony coming from within the flaming light broke both her hearts, and the Doctor pushed forth with more determination.

"It's okay," she yelled out through gritted teeth as she struggled to move forward. "I'll protect you. Stop fighting it, and just let it happen. I've got you."

The screaming stopped suddenly, and the Doctor peered up over the top of her forearm into the light. "That's right," she assured firmly as she looked into a terrified face that was shifting and warping with the change. "You're safe. I promise you."

"I'm never safe," the figure sobbed out with a broken voice that was as skewed and warped as its face. Its arm lifted to point toward a sucking, slurping sound only metres to her right. "Never."

The Doctor turned to look toward where the figure was pointing and gasped with horror at the sight. It was a large fracture in reality, a pulsing hole that was puckered blue and white at its edges with a centre as black as nothingness. Her breath blew past her lips with a sound of worry.

"Get back!" her mysterious new companion belched out in warning. "He's coming!"

The Doctor wasn't going to take that kind of warning from just anyone, so she strode curiously forward. "What have we got here, then?" she asked worriedly as she lifted her sonic Screwdriver to get a read on the anomaly. She narrowed her gaze beyond the glow of the sonic and swore to the stars that she could see a snarling figure moving within.

Before she could open her mouth to query the vision, the Doctor found herself suddenly seized in the grasp of the regenerating Time Lord. Bright and terrified eyes bored into hers, and she peeped as she was thrust to the ground and held in place by a single hand against her chest as the Time Lord hurled an explosive toward the gaping wound in reality.

"Get down!"

She was quickly smothered by a heavy body and choked by fiery regeneration energy as an explosion boomed over the top of them. Birds cried out shrill calls of warning, and trees groaned and splintered, as hot orange flashes of fire shot over the top of them both…

…and then all was silent.

Well, silent except for the quiet chanting of the body above her, of course.

"Please tell me he's gone. Please tell me he's gone. Please tell me it worked. No more. No more."

The Doctor blinked lashes heavy with mascara up at the face hovered above hers with an expression of surprise and worry. The man that hovered above her held himself with complete fear. His eyes were clenched tightly shut and he shuddered enough that she could feel each tremor along her entire body.

"It's okay," she cooed gently as she looked over his shoulder toward where the menacing tear in the fabric of reality had been. She let out a relieved breath to see nothing but trees in the distance and a lavender sky above those trees. "Whatever you did, it worked. There's nothing and no one there."

The man continued to chant and to shudder with fear, and his head shook slowly as the clutch of his eyes tightened further. It was clear that the man above her had tried to escape his danger at least once before and had been unsuccessful at it,and that he didn't believe for a moment that this attempt had worked either.

The Doctor lifted her hand to touch at the man's shoulder. "Hey… I said it's okay."

The man's eyes shot open and he inhaled a gasp so deeply that he almost took a lungful of the Doctors hair into his mouth. "Oh! Oh my God. I'm… I'm so sorry!"

The Doctor grinned helpfully as the man tried to awkwardly climb off the top of her. "No need to apologise, _really_. I've done the same thing myself once or twice to a distressed person who's found themselves in the path of an explosive." She frowned in thought. "Or maybe that's three or four times." She blinked and looked back up at her savior with a grin in her eyes. "So maybe I should be the one to be expressing apologies and offering my thanks to you."

There was an expression of dumbfounded surprise from above her, but the man said nothing.

"However," the Doctor offered with an expression morphing into discomfort. "Now that the danger has passed, please feel free to get off me."

Again, the man let out a gasp that was far less masculine than his physical appearance would suggest he should be. He scrambled to get up, and when he found that effort too difficult to manage, simply rolled off her and thumped heavily onto his back beside her. He lifted his hand to cover his eyes and shook his head. "Well, this day just keeps improving, doesn't it?"

The Doctor hummed and lifted herself to her elbows to take a look at the spot where the anomalous hole had been. "Well yes," she breathed out with a bit of a huff. "As it seems that you've escaped whatever crisis you were running from, then I would say it is, actually." She turned her head to look down her shoulder at the man, who had now adopted the very same position as herself. "Unless you were speaking paradoxically, of course."

The man flicked weary eyes toward her. He huffed and then dropped back onto the grass with a moan. "I really don't know what I'm saying."

"I have days like those," the Doctor admitted with a chuckle; one that quickly shifted to a clearing of her throat. "Sometimes those days lengthen into decades, unfortunately. I've had _those_ days spread across entire incarnations." She gulped. "My sixth body was particularly prone to those kinds of days."

He sighed a sound that could have been a laugh, but it was hard to tell. "You sound like an old friend of mine."

"Oh?" the Doctor said with sudden interest in her tone. "And this friend of yours, was she a good woman?"

"Man," he answered along a whisper of exhaustion. "And yeah. He had good intentions. I suppose that makes him a _good_ man."

"Good intentions, but not always the best of executions, I suspect," she offered with a roll in her eyes. "Yes. Sounds like several people I know – myself included."

"Me too," he replied with a smile. He then let out a long breath that held a moan within it.

"Are you alright?" the Doctor asked gently.

"Yeah. Nothing a good soak in a bath full of bubbles won't solve," he offered back with a smile as he relaxed in the grass and closed his eyes. "I'd give my right arm to have a good long soak and a glass of wine right now."

"Erm," the Doctor hummed unsurely. "Well."

"Oh," he sang out with a smile, although he didn't open his eyes. "Admit it. There's nothing like a long soak, a good book, and a glass of wine while listening to the sappiest boyband on the planet singing one of their ballads of love and romance."

It was at this point that the Doctor noticed her new companion's wardrobe. Decidedly feminine in style: a fitted lavender shirt underneath a cropped leather jacket, tight black yoga pants with see-through panels in a line along the outside of the calf – all of which were now obscenely tight across his newly-minted male physique.

She cleared her throat. "So. You've undergone a gendering regeneration, I see."

Her companion frowned in confusion and rolled his eyes toward her. "Excuse me?"

"Regeneration," the Doctor clarified. "You appear to have had a change in gender. Quite remarkable that, really. Traditionally it's never really been a particularly common thing; this changing between genders during regeneration; but there certainly seems to have been a bit of an upswing in occurrences lately." She blew out a breath and shrugged. "The last four regenerations I know of have involved a gender reassignment. Been through it myself quite recently, in fact. Two-thousand years as a man, and then one day: Bam! Female."

He simply looked confursed. "What…?"

She jutted her chin toward him in a gesture toward his mid-section. "You're male this time around. I don't know that you'd noticed that."

Her companion's eyes widened and he visibly swallowed. His voice lowered to a squeak. "I'm _what_?"

The Doctor let out a short chuckle. "I was going to comment on the low register of your voice as an indicator, but you quickly nixed that idea by opting to speak like a mouse."

"No," he sang out as he slowly lifted himself to a seated position. "No no no. I can't be."

The Doctor's eyes pinched as he watched his companion carefully and slowly assess the new length of his arms, twisting and turning his hands in front of him. "Oh no," he repeated with horror lacing his voice. "This can't happen."

"It can," the Doctor said with a shrug. "And I'm afraid it has."

His companion looked down toward her groin, and the bulge that the yoga pants weren't designed to hide, and her eyes widened in horror. "Oh hell no," she parked put as she put her hands onto ground and shuffled backward in the dirt as though to escape the package between her legs. "Get it off," she ordered urgently. "Get it off me!"

The Doctor's eyes widened as she watched her companion do all that she could to escape the bulge in her yoga pants. It should have been comical, seeing a buff young man trying to escape the defining feature of masculinity with all manner of twists, turns, shuffling, and even swatting at it, but she understood the shock.

"I'm sorry," she offered gently. "I know it's a shock right now, but I promise you that you'll get used to it soon enough."

Wide and frightened eyes lifted to hers. Her companion shook his head and gasped. "How? How can I get used to something like … like …" He gestured toward his groin. "I don't know how to use one of these. I've never had to use one. I don't _want_ one!"

The Doctor widened her eyes and rubbed at her chin. "Well. I'm afraid that it's quite necessary for you to have one," she answered flatly.

"I want to change back," he shot in petulantly. "Can I … can I just regenerate again or something, and hope that I'll be a girl again next time?"

"I wouldn't recommend it," the Doctor admonished with a frown. "It's not like you have unlimited regenerations you know." She tipped her head to one side. "Didn't' they tell you about this at the academy?"

The man stopped his shuffling and looked to the Doctor with a pinch of confusion in his eyes. "Academy?"

"Oh," she sang out as she finally rose up onto her feet and brushed down her thighs. "Where they taught you to be a Time Lord," she said condescendingly. "I know it's been a fair while since I roamed the halls of Cadon campus, but they made sure to make us aware of the somewhat _remote_ possibility of a gender-switch occurring during a regeneration." She levered her eyes to him. "I would imagine, with the sudden rise in gender-swapping regenerations, that the current cadets would be more ardently educated in it."

"So," he asked her flatly. "I guess that's your way of tellin' me that you're a Time Lord, as well?"

"Possibly a rhetorical question," the Doctor admitted with a shrug. "But I'll answer it anyway: Yes. I am a Time Lord – currently Lady – of Gallifrey."

"I didn't think there were any of you left."

The Doctor was taken aback by that. "I'm sorry?"

"Back in the Time War," he clarified as he drew up to a stand, taking care to brush himself free of dirt. He kept his eyes on her. "Wasn't Gallifrey destroyed?"

The Doctor's eyes were wide at that. She turned her head to one side and warily looked toward this man with a drop in jaw and a worried glint in her eye. "Why would you say that?"

"Because it was, wasn't it?"

"No," she breathed out long. "Gallifrey lives."

The man's eyes widened in horror and she shook her head with apology. "Oh no. I've come back too early, haven't I? The Time War hasn't started yet, and I've just told you what happened?" He clutched fistfuls of his hair and practically stomped around in a circle. "God. I've just gone ahead and blown it all now, haven't I? Destroyed the whole universe because I'm too stupid to know when to keep my mouth shut!"

"Oh settle down," the Doctor growled impatiently. "No need for you to panic. The Time War was a very long time ago."

He stopped panicking and dropped his hands to look toward her. "But I was told that Gallifrey was destroyed in the Time War."

The Doctor slowly nodded her head. "Yes, well, that _was_ a long held belief in the immediate aftermath of the war," she admitted. "But circumstances. Well. Things may have been revisited and timelines changed … or realigned … or stayed the same .. really hard to work that one out, actually."

"So, the Doctor didn't destroy Gallifrey?"

Her brow flicked. "Who told you that?"

He shrugged. "He did."

The Doctor's eyes widened. "Oh. You _know_ the Doctor, then?"

He thumbed at his nose and looked off to the side. "May have done. Once upon a time. Long time ago." He shook himself and then stilled as though to calm himself somewhat. After a breath he shifted his eyes back toward her. "All in the past now. I take it you know him?"

Curiosity set in firmly. "You could say that," she answered cryptically with careful tone of voice.

He snorted and rolled his eyes. "Ruin your life too, did he?" He shrugged and slid his hands into the jacket pockets. "Turns out he's pretty good at that."

That hit a little hard into her hearts. She narrowed her eyes and tried very hard to think back on any Gallifreyan friends and just how she may have ruined their lives. Aside from the Master, and maybe the Rani, he couldn't think of anyone in particular.

Susan? No. She would have recognized her immediately. Romana? No, they remained friends long after she left the TARDIS. She became President of Gallifrey …

.. Although if that future was to befall her, she'd likely consider it something that may _ruin her life_ …

She blinked that through out of her head and looked back to the young man who had started to slowly pace in a small circle. "How," she ventured with a slight waver in her voice. "How did the Doctor ruin your life?"

He flicked his eyes to hers, held his breath for a moment, and then exhaled and shook his head. "That's. That's _my_ story to hang on to," he answered. "Not goin' to wander about spreading rumours and bad mouthing _Time's Champion_." She let one edge of her mouth lift into a rueful smile. "This universe needs to keep their faith in that he's a selfless God … I'm not goin' to ruin that image. Forget I said anything."

"I won't tell anyone," she offered with a conspiratorial smirk. "We can share stories."

The man shook his head. "I won't," he affirmed vehemently. "Every hero has his flaws – especially him." He lowered his head with a smile. "I may blame him for how my life went, but it wasn't _his_ fault. Not really. It was all _my_ doing that led me to where I ended up."

The Doctor stepped in closer to the man and narrowed her eyes to look deeply into his. She saw nothing to give away who this man was, but he saw something there that skipped at least one of her hearts.

"You love him," she breathed out.

It was as much statement as it was a question, and the man slowly nodded his head. His smile was one full of pain and heartbreak. "Not the first one to love him," he answered with a shrug. "Doubt I'll be the last."

The Doctor's brows pinched tight as she watched a tear fall from the man's eye. "This is more than just _love_ , isn't it?" She asked curiously. "You are _in love_ with him."

The man actually let out a series of quiet laughs at that. Although outwardly projecting amusement, his heartbreak was obvious. "Foolish me, yeah? Bein' in love with someone like him. Stupid pursuit, that. It's like falling in love with a sunset or a warm summer breeze … they'll never return the love. They won't love you back. They can't." She exhaled. "Just like he can't. He won't."

The Doctor lifted her hand to his face, lingering in the air a moment before letting fingers brush at the sweat and stubble on his cheek. His words were so similar to words spoken back in his last incarnation by a woman who held more love for the Doctor than she could ever have given in return.

"River?" she asked softly. It had to be her – River Song. Who else could it be? Who else loved her that much despite how much she altered and ruined her life? "Is that you?"

The widening in the young man's eyes, and the expression of hurt within them told the Doctor that his assumption had been wrong: This person was not River Song. By the clear pain in those eyes, she could tell that this man knew who River Song was.

"I guess not," she managed to mutter.

The man stared at her a moment longer, and then seemed to shake himself out of whatever thoughts or questions he hadn't verbalised out of his head. He shrugged and stepped off to one side to look across the canyon toward the horizon. "But enough of that, yeah? Whatever I had – or didn't have – with the Doctor is long past now. He's moved on. I've moved on."

The Doctor tilted her head curiously at the forced joviality in his voice. "Are you quite sure about that, because it doesn't sound as if you're quite over him."

He snorted an indignant laugh and pointed toward his groin. "Not much choice in that, really. Not quite compatible with him like this, am I?"

"You'd be surprised," the Doctor said quietly with an amused rise in her brow. She inhaled deeply and lifted her head, schooling her amusement back behind curiosity. "So what's your name, then?"

"Mike," he answered with a shrug.

"Mike?"

He looked back to the Doctor. "Yeah, _Mike_. Seems to fit this body a little better than the name my mum gave me. Not quite an androgynous name, that. So I'll go with _Mike_." He held up his wrist and pulled back the sleeve of his jacket to reveal a crudely constructed device with a lump of broken coral wedged inside it. "Now," he began distractedly. "To find my way to Earth."

The Doctor's head lifted with intrigue as she moved closer in an attempt to investigate just what, exactly, _Mike_ was wearing on is wrist. "Need to find your way to Earth? I can help you with that if you want."

 _Mike_ turned his head to look at the Doctor with a raised brow. "Need more'n a lift to Earth, but thanks anyway."

The Doctor's tongue pressed up against her lip as she rose up on her toes to try and get a better look at the device on _Mike's_ wrist. "Looking for that bath as well? My ship can handle that request well enough."

 _Mike_ chuckled. "Tell me that your ship travels in time as well, and we may be onto something."

"I'm a Time Lord. What other kind of ship would I have?" she answered with a shrug as she finally locked her eyes on the device. It didn't take long to surmise that the devise was a crudely constructed time and space hopper.

Crudely constructed meant dangerous, which meant that the device needed to be procured and then deactivated immediately. She reached out to grab it, but was quickly swatted off by _Mike_.

"Oi!" he snapped as he took a full stride backward. "Do you mind?"

"You really shouldn't have that," the Doctor warned with a frown on her face as she pointed to his wrist. "It's not a device for amateurs." She flicked out her fingers in a gesture of demand. "Now give that to me, please, and let me deactivate it. I'll get you where you need to go – that's my promise to you."

 _Mike_ narrowed his eyes at her in a very feminine – and very familiar – manner of challenge. "And what? You think I'm going to just trust you on this?" He pointed at the device. "This is all I have in the entire universe," he growled. "I'm not going to give it to just anyone."

"I'm not just _anyone_ ," the Doctor corrected shortly. "I'm the authority on this kind of thing…"

"An' I'm the authority on detecting bullshittin' Time Lords," he countered darkly. He pointed to the space where the tear once pulsed and suckled at this reality. "Put up with one for near a century on the other side of _that…"_

The Doctor's eyes widened and flicked toward the point of _Mike's_ finger…

"And this thing…" he pointed at his wrist. "Is how I finally got away from him. No explosion or rupture of reality. No reapers of destruction of worlds and universes. Worked just fine thank you."

The Doctor's eyes flicked worriedly toward _Mike._ Her mouth dropped just slightly as she tried to take in all that he was saying. "When you say _the other side of that_ ," she began with a gulp. "Are you telling me you were in another universe?"

"Ding! Ding! Ding!" _Mike_ chirped out sarcastically. "Give the Time Lady a banana."

"Well there's no need to be rude," the Doctor huffed.

"I learned from the best," _Mike_ muttered sourly. "Bit of an expert at it now." He poked at the coral chunk, tapped it with his nail, and then pushed hard at it to secure it more firmly within its strapping. "Course, I learned torture, pain, and suffering as well…"

"I … I'm very sorry to hear that," the Doctor offered softly.

 _Mike_ shrugged. "I'm free now, that's what matters, right?" She looked back over her shoulder to where the tear was. "As long as he doesn't find himself a way to cross through, I should be okay."

The Doctor's eyes followed _Mike's_ gaze. "Who was he; the man you were escaping from?"

"Time Lord," _Mike_ offered with a shrug. His face screwed up slightly and he shook his head. "Well. Half Time Lord, half Human if I'm going for full disclosure here."

The Doctor's eyes flicked curiously toward him. Worry toward the legend heard by his last incarnation filled her mind. "A hybrid?"

"Metacrisis," _Mike_ corrected with a sneer.

The Doctor's mouth fell open and dread filled her. "What did you say?"

"Metacrisis," _Mike_ repeated. "Created during the Doc… erm … During an aborted regeneration of a Time Lord right before we all ended up on the crucible facing the Daleks." He shuddered and sapped his tongue on the roof of his mouth in disgust. "Unpleasant time, I can assure you."

"You," she queried with a waver of panic in her voice. "You were on the crucible?"

 _Mike's_ brow pinched. "Yeah. I was. Invited by Davros himself, actually."

"The Doctor's most loyal companion," the Doctor breathed out almost inaudibly as realisation set in. "You crossed entire universes, striding parallel to parallel to find him again."

 _Mike_ took a stride backward. He shook his head and panted out a short series of negatives. "You can't … how could you possibly know about that?"

"Because," she replied softly as she walked toward _Mike_ and looked into his face. "Because I was there." She lifted her hands to cup at _Mike's_ face. "Because I was there, Rose."

Tears filled the young man's eyes and dribbled thickly down his cheeks, but he didn't pull away. "H-How?" he stammered out. "How do you know my name?"

The Doctor gave a forced smile and swallowed back her own distress. "It's me, Rose."

Rose's eyes blinked quickly. He moved his face closer to her. "D-Doctor?"

The Doctor stretched wide a grin that was so reminiscent of her Tenth self. "Hello."


	2. Arguments

A/N:

First up: Thanks for the great reception to this. Oh, but it's been a while, and it's nice to know I can still draw in a reader or two! I certainly hope what follows will keep you reading here and beyond.

This gender thing is fun ... and a lil confusing to write. Oh, so many times I mess up the gender when I'm writing it, but heh ... it's a unique challenge for me.

This may seem to swerve like a wee snake, but there is a reason behind the Doctor's muddled thoughts and topic changes throughout. Stick with it, please...

~~oooOOOooo~~

If the Doctor had expected Rose to accept her "hello" with a tongue-touched grin, a giggle of happiness, and maybe a bone crushing hug, she was sorely mistaken.

Instead of happiness and relief, Rose took a step back and exhaled a loud breath of disappointment and anger at the news.

"Don't touch me," he growled out along a quiet and eerily dangerous tone of voice. He made no move to shove the Doctor's hands from their delicate touch upon his cheek, but the Doctor jerked back sharply as though he had.

The Doctor practically curled in on herself under Rose's heated glare. Any love she had seen inside her eyes had vanished, only to be replaced by hatred … or was it heavy disappointment? The distinction between the two was fairly irrelevant as far as the Doctor was concerned, they were both as horrible as each other.

She stepped back and to the side with a lift in her shoulder to look down along it toward her former companion. "Why're you looking at me like that?"

Rose's entire frame was rigid and it seemed to take quite an effort for him to turn his head on his neck to look at her. "Looking at you like _what_?"

"Like _that_ ," the Doctor answered quietly. "Like you want that fissure to open back up and suck me into another world?"

A brow rose high on Rose's head and he snorted lightly in amusement. "That'd be lovely. And if you don't mind, could you please leave the TARDIS behind – my universal hopper doesn't seem configured correctly for this particular parallel."

Any offence she should have felt toward Rose's comment were immediately smothered by curiosity at the words _Universal Hopper_. The Doctor stuck her tongue into the corner of her lip and lifted her head to attempt to look over Rose's shoulder at the device in question. She slid her hands into the pockets of her jacket and moved toward Rose with a forced casual stride.

"Universal Hopper, you say," she breathed out through lips that pursed loosely outward. "Still haven't been able to put one together, myself. Care to share your secret?"

Rose's brows pinched tightly together in a perplexed expression. "I'm sorry, _what_?"

The Doctor smiled. She didn't pull her hands from her pockets. Instead she buried them deeper to push up her shoulders a little to attempt a more interesting and perhaps innocent façade. Rose didn't need to be alerted to the fact that she was ready to snatch the thing from his wrist, throw it to the ground, and then stomp on it.

Dangerous is what that thing was. Whole universes could collapse, all of reality destroyed…And all that jazz.

She had to keep it cool, though. No need to let on her intentions of thievery. She merely jutted her chin in a gesture toward the device.

"Your Universal Hopper," she clarified. "I'd like to hear more about it."

Rose rolled his eyes skyward and shook his head. "Typical."

The huff in his voice drew the Doctor's attention away from Rose's wrist. She focused on the skyward gaze and shake of his head. "What's typical?" she queried somewhat indignantly. "My interest in portable travel technology?" She shrugged and gave a snort of her own. "I'll wear that accusation with pride, actually. I like to be renowned for my interest in things like that."

Rose shook his head. "Deflect, deflect, deflect," he muttered. "Doesn't matter which you it is, when a subject comes up that you don't want to talk about, you find another topic and change the subject."

The Doctor huffed. "Well," she drawled with a look toward Rose's wrist. "You brought it up with your talk of me exiting this universe and leavin' you my TARDIS because your universal hopper isn't appropriately configured. It should be understandable that my interest would be piqued by something like that."

"Like a dog seein' a damn rabbit, you are."

"A more accurate description of me would be that of a concerned friend," She sniffed back petulantly. "Forgive me for wanting to lend a hand to you and configure it properly for this universe."

"That's rubbish, and you know it," Rose barked back with a curl in his lip. "First chance you get, you'd destroy it." He flipped his hand in a dismissive gesture. "Find some useless bleedin' excuse for it too. _Destroy and collapse universes, fracture reality, erase time and bring in reapers_ or some other such nonsense."

The Doctor scoffed with affront. "I would do no such thing," she lied. She flicked her wrist to indicate the device. "That's a marvel of ingenuity; the device on your wrist." She pursed her lips hopefully. "Can I take a quick look at it?"

Rose shook his head. "No."

"Oh," she whined. "Please? Just a quick look. A Short assessment, really. Won't take much more than a second."

Rose looked back down at her wrist and shook her head. "No means _no_. It doesn't mean _ask again_ or _push the request further._ I said _no_ and I mean it." He levered an annoyed look toward the Doctor. "This is _mine_. It took me nearly a decade to build it; almost double that to work out the kinks."

"Please let me look," the Doctor almost – but not quite – moaned. "Just one little peek."

Rose twisted her wrist to put the device on display, but didn't hand it over or mane any move to remove it for the Doctor to more closely inspect it. When the Doctor moved her hands forward to touch it, Rose quickly snapped her wrist back in toward himself. "Nuh-uh. You look with your eyes, not your hands."

"Well," the Doctor said with a snort that ended with her pursing her lips and slouching in a petulant manner. She waved her hand toward the device. "Thought your mother taught you to share your toys and play nice with others."

Rose's eyes flared with an emotion that the Doctor couldn't immediately decipher. The expression shifted quickly to neutral and the young man shrugged. "Guess I was always a brat."

"You don't have to be one…"

Rose looked toward him. "You're not playing with it, so stop asking."

The Doctor's nose crinkled with displeasure. "Well. You've certainly lost your sense of _fun_ , haven't you?"

Rose snorted. "Playing dangerous – and not ever fully successful games of cat and mouse with a psychotic metacrisis version of a troublesome Time Lord will do that to a person."

The Doctor's face fell into a deep frown. "Every single part of that response scares me, Rose."

He snorted. "Yeah. Well try living it."

If was very tempting for the Doctor to outline each and every time he's been engaged in that very game throughout her many lives up against so many enemies time and time again. The Daleks immediately sprang to mind. However, she bit down on any such retort of that nature and let herself exhale a long breath before responding.

"What happened?"

Rose chuckled softly under her breath and shook her head. "Not really any of your concern," he answered with a slight waver in his tone.

"I beg to differ," the Doctor remarked back quickly. "Anything that involved you – and my Metacrisis self – has absolutely _everything_ to do with me."

Rose threw his head back and barked out a long laugh of pure contempt. "Oh. Oh, that's really rich."

"I don't quite follow."

Rose lowered his head and looked toward the Doctor with eyes full of accusation. His voice was low and quiet, almost seething. "You gave up any entitlement to anything to do with John and myself when you left us alone on that beach and locked us away from everything we'd ever known."

The Doctor's brows rose high. "John? He called himself _John_?"

Rose's shoulders fell with exasperation. His jaw followed suit to gape with disbelief. " _That_ is your response: to question his choice in his name rather than defend your actions?" He waited only a moment for a response before holding up a hand in a "stop" gesture and turned away from her. "You know what? Never mind. Forget it. Forget that you saw me. Forget everything." He looked down to fiddle with the crude controls on his device. "He's going to be here soon enough. That explosion only gives me about a half hour or so. Standing here talking to you is wasting time I could be using to get as far away from here as possible."

Rose looked at the space where the fissure had originally opened up and let out a very long breath. So focused on his own fear, he didn't react when he felt the soft grasp of the Doctor's hand on his arm.

"Too dangerous to be left on his own," Rose recited quietly. "That's what you said. Born in battle, full of blood and anger and revenge."

"Rose…"

"I don't know how you could have left us behind after saying all that and think that everything was going to go alright," Rose continued. "Typical guy. You sire a child – well with you a fully grown one – and then just dump it off for someone else to look after."

The Doctor's eyes narrowed with hurt. "That isn't how it was," she growled through her teeth.

"Oh no?" Rose snipped back as he twisted his head to glare down at her. "Then how about you tell me how it was? How it really was? And then, when you're done trying to justify your actions, let me fill you in on just what _exactly_ you left behind on that beach, and how it affected not only me, but the entire universe you abandoned."

"Rose," the Doctor ventured quietly. "I'm so…"

Rose spun on her at that moment. "You didn't even say goodbye," he spat out. "After everything I did to get back to you, after everything we ever went through together – you couldn't even take a moment to say goodbye."

The Doctor's eyes quickly washed with tears and she shook her head. Her voice shifted to a tone of pleading and of desperate apology. "I couldn't say it," she half begged. "How _could_ I say it?"

"Easy," Rose retorted snidely. "Goodbye, Rose. See how easy that is to say? Goodbye. So long. Farewell. _Have a fantastic life._ " He strode forward and leaned down slightly to speak into the Doctor's face. "You're so good at walking away, aren't you? Walking away and never, ever looking back."

The Doctor let herself hold onto Rose's anger as her anchor to maintaining composure. It was true that in the past she always walked away and never looked back when a companion left the TARDIS. It was only in his Eleventh form that he started to flip in an out of her companion's lives rather than have them permanently on board.

"Not anymore," she breathed out finally as her mind wandered toward Amy, Rory, Clara, and how much of their lives he became a part of. Decades rather than months. "Not anymore."

Rose let up a laugh at that. "Oh, where have I heard sentiments like that from you before?"

"I've changed," the Doctor said quietly.

Rose looked her up and down with a smirk. "Yes. I would say so. Tell me, how are you enjoying your newfound femininity?"

She lifted her eyes in contemplation. "Well," she answered as though Rose wasn't playing at being a facetious little shit. "I'm enjoying the experience quite a lot. I'm able to much more embrace my emotions – for one." She paused and her brows knitted together in thought. "Although sometimes that can illustrate me in ways I've never been viewed before…"

"Been called _needy_ , yet?"

The Doctor flicked her gaze to Rose. She bit at the edge of her lower lip and held herself from nodding. "I can't say that the accusation has been made by anyone in particular, but I have had moments where the need has been particularly pulling."

"Need for what," Rose asked softly, slight hope in his voice.

"Companionship," the Doctor answered simply, oblivious to what Rose was looking to hear. She slouched with a smile. "Oh, I love friends," she cooed. "I just want to be surrounded by people … as many people as I can." Her eyes widened and she grinned as she pointed toward Rose. "You can join us if you want. That'll be fun."

Rose's eyes flashed open wide. There was clear panic in her expression. "You mean you have companions? _Here_?"

"I have companions," the Doctor clarified carefully, with definite confusion in her tone. "But they're all at home now celebrating their Christmases and holidays with their families."

"You didn't stay with them to celebrate?"

She shook her head. "Nah. Not really into Christmas dinners and making nice with families. Too much festive spirit gives me a stomach ache and makes my head hurt."

Rose chuckled and shook her head. "You're full of it. You loved Christmas with Mum, Mickey and me."

"You're right," she admitted with a gentle smile.

There was silence for a moment as Rose waited for the Doctor to expend on that. When she didn't, Rose pressed for more. "Well?"

The Doctor cleared her throat and took her gaze away from the man standing in front of her. "Yes. Well. That was the last Christmas I spent with any of my companions." She pursed her lips and lifted a hand to tuck her hair behind her ear. "First and last Christmas I spent with a companion's family," she admitted. "After I lost you. Well. I…" She sighed. "Too much of a reminder, I suppose."

For a moment, Rose felt compassion and empathy toward the Doctor for that admission. It was quickly suffocated, however, when the Doctor's eyes lit up and she corrected that.

"Oh, no. That's not entirely accurate." She grinned a happy smile. "I did end up on Amy's doorstep one Christmas. Had dinner with her and Rory."

"I see," Rose breathed out. "Amy was…?"

"A companion," she said with longing in her eyes and voice. "You would have loved her, Rose. Rude _and_ ginger!"

Rose rolled his eyes. "Yeah. I can see how you'd admire those qualities. Rude being your default setting as far as I can remember."

"Oi," she countered with hurt. "Not always. I've been known to be very pleasant when the occasion calls for it."

"I guess the occasion never arose while you and I were together then?"

The Doctor smiled. "So we were then? Not being at all familiar with the Human protocols for _togetherness_ , I wasn't really very sure about that."

"Sure about what?"

"Whether or not we were _together_."

Rose's brow flicked high. "In what sense? If you mean travelling companions, then yeah. Totally did that together…."

The Doctor smiled and jumped in quickly to prevent an expansion on that thought that might not quite head in the direction that the Doctor had hoped. "Which is what I told Martha when I met her. You and me: together." She scratched at her hair and lengthened her face thoughtfully. "Didn't stop her from taking a fancy to me, though. Quite liked me, Martha."

"So did _you_ in that incarnation."

The Doctor smirked. "I was rather dashing in that body, even I have to admit that." The smirk turned into a purse of the lips and a lift in her brows. "Wasn't ready to give it up when the time came, though. It was a very hard regeneration to go through. One of the scant few that I did alone. Near destroyed my TARDIS." She looked to Rose with wide eyes. "Would you like me to tell you about it? We could go back to the TARDIS, set ourselves in the Vortex and talk over tea in the library."

"Uh…"

"And then we can set down on Earth, and I can introduce you to my current companions." Her grin was wide and excited. "Oh, a full TARDIS, again! How that'll take me back to when I wore pinstripes and a full command deck. What an adventure _that_ was!" Her excitement was palpable. "Let's take an adventure: All of us!"

"Why?" Rose snorted. "So when it's all done, you cantake me back to Bad Wolf Bay over in a desolate and now destroyed parallel universe? Perhaps recreate another psychotic version of you to torture me for another century? No, ta. Been there, done that, wore the T-Shirt."

That made the Doctor's brows come together and drop heavily over her eyes. "When you say _torture_ …?"

Rose shook her head. "Look. It's nothing, okay."

The Doctor's eyes narrowed. "I very much think you're lying to me."

"So what if I am; it's not going to change anything, is it?" he asked with a shrug. Her concentration had shifted back to her universal hopper and an amber light that had begun to flicker on it. "Forty five minutes this time…"

The Doctor ignored the part of Rose's comment that included a time frame.

"If you don't tell me, then I'll fret," she stated as though it was the ultimate threat. "I'll stew over it and worry. My imagination – which is extremely vivid in this incarnation – will run rampant." She threw up her arms. "I'll create all sorts of scenarios in my mind about it."

"Uh-huh," Rose hummed out as he whipped a tiny little screwdriver from his jacket pocket. "Then write a book. I'm sure it'll be a best seller. Put my name in the dedications, ta."

The Doctor's mouth hung as Rose moved past her to walk back toward the clearing that had once held a fissure in reality. "I don't think you're fully understanding what I'm telling you here, Rose." She stalked toward him, noting the way that he held his wrist, and the device over the air where the fissure had been. That action quickly had the Doctor retrieving her own screwdriver from her bum-bag. "Are you listening to me?"

"Hard not to," Rose admitted as she brought her wrist back toward her and analysed the date displayed on a small Apple-Watch style face. "Because you _keep talking_."

"I keep talking because you're _not_ ," she growled in reply. She aimed the sonic at the space where the fissure once was and pressed the small button that activated it. "I'm trying – very hard – to remind you who we once were, to put you at ease so you'll tale to me." She snatched the sonic screwdriver from the air and brought it toward her to read her own data. "My hearts once beat for you, Rose Tyler…."

"Not the time for an admission like that, Doctor," Rose barker out urgently. "He's comin, and you need to get as far away from here as you can. Because if he senses the TARDIS nearby…"

The Doctor saw her own data and gave a firm nod. "You're right, there's a hairline fracture in reality right now, and it's growing." She grabbed hold of Rose's wrist firmly. "Come with me to the TARDIS."

Rose pulled her wrist from her hold. "No, Doctor. I Can't. You go, I have to stay and face him."

The Doctor blinked as a thin line of light appeared in mid-air. She reached for Rose's wrist once more. "You're don't have to face anyone. Come with me."

Rose shot her a glare. "If I don't, he'll destroy this reality like he has all of the others."

The Doctor gagged. "Hold on, what? … and let's not forget to add _who_ to that question."

"Your metacrisis," he clarified. HE turned a frightened stare toward the Doctor. "This is a game to him. I escape, he follows. If he doesn't find me, then he destroys everything in his path until he does."

The sliver turned into a thick line of squelching blue and white. The Doctor looked on with worry and held up her sonic screwdriver as though it was capable of holding back one of the universes most formidable forces. "Why?"

"Because he's mad," Rose whispered. "Absolutely insane. Full of fire, vengeance and hatred." He spun toward the Doctor and looked at her with an urgent expression. "You have to leave. Now. You can't be here. IF he sees you…"

The Doctor shook her head. "I'm not leaving you."

"Why not," she growled. "You've done it before, what's one more time between friends?"

The Doctor anchored her stand and prepared to face whatever was about to emerge from the fissure. Her clone. The exact image of her in her tenth incarnation. "Never again."

Rose moved toward her and growled into her face. "You don't get it, Doctor. You have to take the TARDIS and leave here. Now!"

"I won't leave you," the Doctor vowed through her teeth.

She took Rose's hand in hers and braced as the fissure split open and revealed a grotesque image of his Tenth self. He was aged, leathered, and disfigured across the face. He strode with confidence and purpose, but with a gait that was unsteady and clumsy. This looked like a man who had walked through fire, hail and brimstone, had been trampled by the four horses of the Apocalypse, and lived to tell the tale.

How could this creature once have been the twin to his most attractive self?

She gasped as he strode across the short distance between the fissure and herself, clutching firmly at Rose's hand when it tightened in fear.

"Too late," Rose whispered. "I'm so sorry."

The Metacrisis strode past Rose and made a beeline directly toward the Doctor. His lips stretched into a smile that showed greyed and yellowed teeth.

"Darling," he cooed to the Doctor as he lifted his hand to her face and brushed the hair from her eyes with a tender touch from wrinkled fingertips. His brows lifted high to open his age narrowed eyes that chided her gently. "You're getting better at this. I almost lost you this time."

Beside her, Rose peeped and shuddered, but the Doctor was happy to play along. "John," she cooed lovingly. "You found me…"

"And I always will," he purred back in reply as he leaned down to press his lips against hers.


End file.
